This morning an 18-month old girl in my town lost a battle with neuroblastoma. This month I’m preparing to push through my second Christmas without Kevin. Life isn’t, and has never been fair. I can’t help but feel a tinge of anger about whoever might be responsible for such things.

I can’t accept that children dying are part of any plan. When a baby’s brain cells go haywire or a young man is ejected from a car, or a young woman loses a battle with her demons, it wasn’t planned. It is random, it is painful, but it’s all part of life. I almost wish I had the capacity to be angry with God. Fate is an impersonal and altogether inadequate target for my ire.

It amazes me the number of people who have struggled through the same forest we are struggling through. When I see or hear of another parent joining this club my heart breaks yet again. I imagine it will always be this way.

Those of us who live on really don’t have a choice. We live to honor and remember the lost, to do less would be an insult. Some days I have to convince myself of this. Some days I just want to bury myself in my sadness. Some days I feel like I can make it through.